World Trade: The War over Steel

Steel, the world's basic industry, is
locked in a bitter international price war. With steel profits sliding
in almost every industrialized nationthe auto boom and buying as a
strike hedge made the U.S. an exception in the year's first half
catcalls and complaints of dumping and cheating are flying back and
forth across national borders.

U.S. steelmakers complain of inroads by the Western Europeans; the
French snap crossly at the Belgians; the Germans lash out at the
British, the French, the Belgians and the Swedes; and no one, of
course, has a kind word for Japan's low-cost producers. Last week,
alarmed...